How To Repair A Turntable Drive Belt

It's kinda like the belt on your alternator. But instead of making that terrible screeching sound, it makes no sound at all. Here's how to fix that.

Vinyl is having a renaissance. Thanks to our collective desire to make whatever is old new again, and to the new masters of an old medium like Scott Hull, the world is awash in billions of grams of vinyl.

But records don't play themselves, do they? No. So if you're one of the new audiophile elite, you no doubt have yourself a record player. A record player, it's worth mentioning, whose primary design dates back to Thomas Edison's 1877 invention. Sure, things have changed since then. But not as much as you'd imagine. So it stands to reason that you're going to need a repair here and there.

One of the most common repairs—and one of the few can do yourself—is replacing the drive belt. Like any good piece of retro music gear, the guts are filled with motors, belts, screws and wires. And while this may make the bits and pieces of your turntable that much more likely to wear out, it also makes it easier to repair.

What follows are some instructions. But we recommend clicking the source link below and heading over to The Audio Blog for a great video that shows everything you need to know and then some.

Unplug everything so that there is no power running to your player.

Remove the turntable platter by slowly sliding out the c-clamp that is holding it in place with the rest of the player. It is a small piece in the center of the player.

Carefully lift the platter up so as to not lose any small pieces. The drive belt will be attached to either the bottom end of the platter or on the pulley located at the base of the turntable.

Gently slide the belt off. If you take a closer look at the bottom end of the platter, there are two posts on opposite ends of the outside ring. If you’re using the same drive belt, you can carefully stretch the drive belt around the inner circle of the platter and then attach the other end to one of the posts.

Mark the area where the belt is attached to the post and slowly lower the platter onto the drive motor at the spot where you marked the post that holds the end of the drive belt.

Give the platter a few turns until it pops off, once it pops off it will be connected to the drive motor.

To test if the belt attached to the motor, you will want to plug the record player back in and activate the motor.

If the platter doesn’t start spinning properly, the belt didn’t make it onto the motor and you will need to repeat the process again.